5 ms·

I wouldn’t think it’s really that complicated. The autopilot on a 182 would do the same thing. If the nose is pointed at the ground, pull back on the yoke. Etc.

I wouldn’t think it’s really that complicated. The autopilot on a 182 would do the same thing. If the nose is pointed at the ground, pull back on the yoke. Etc. The nicer ones can even stop a spin and have a button you press that’ll return you to straight and level flight. I guess a fighter is often purposefully in attitudes a regular plane normally isn’t, but I’d bet it’s a simple warning and override. But I don’t fly fighters so I’m just guessing. Collision avoidance with other planes In a dogfight might be a lot more complex too.

Animats 6y ago
Fighters sometimes fly close to the ground on purpose. Building a system that will allow extreme maneuvers near the ground without a false alarm trigger was hard. The Swedish air force was the first to use this system, and they routinely fly "close to the rock", through mountain passes. That's the hardest part of the problem, deciding when to initiate the recovery while not impeding what fighter pilots consider normal flight. The threshold is something like 0.3 secs before it's too late to correct. That requires a very good trajectory predictor for figuring out when it's going to be too late. Next is getting the aircraft into a wings-level condition, no matter what direction it's pointing. For fighters, extreme attitudes are normal. Auto-GCAS will make violent maneuvers to do this. "At that instant, the Auto-GCAS commands some of the most aggressive, eye-watering maneuvers this ex-USAF flight test engineer and civil pilot has ever experienced. If inverted (bank angle greater than 90 deg.) and somewhat nose-down, a negative 1g push throws the pilot "up" into his shoulder straps and lap belt to get the aircraft's nose headed skyward. Immediately, a 180-deg./sec. roll is commanded, bringing the aircraft to wings-level, right-side-up." Only then can the system command a climb: "Somewhere after passing the 90-deg.-bank point, a 5g pull-up is initiated at an approximately 4g/sec. rate. The system commands a maximum angle-of-attack recovery, if flight conditions will not sustain a 5g pull-up."
jki275 6y ago
The F18 literally has a switch labeled "Spin Recover". One of the things it does is to take the computer out of the equation and allow the pilot to fully command the airplane rather than processing stick and rudder inputs.[1] General procedure though is take your hands and feet off the controls to start with. The full procedure is in the link a few pages in. Notably, it ends with "if passing 10,000ft AGL with no indication of recovery, eject. 1 - https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a256522.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a256522.pdf

Animats 6y ago

Fighters sometimes fly close to the ground on purpose. Building a system that will allow extreme maneuvers near the ground without a false alarm trigger was hard. The Swedish air force was the first to use this system, and they routinely fly "close to the rock", through mountain passes. That's the hardest part of the problem, deciding when to initiate the recovery while not impeding what fighter pilots consider normal flight. The threshold is something like 0.3 secs before it's too late to correct. That requires a very good trajectory predictor for figuring out when it's going to be too late. Next is getting the aircraft into a wings-level condition, no matter what direction it's pointing. For fighters, extreme attitudes are normal. Auto-GCAS will make violent maneuvers to do this. "At that instant, the Auto-GCAS commands some of the most aggressive, eye-watering maneuvers this ex-USAF flight test engineer and civil pilot has ever experienced. If inverted (bank angle greater than 90 deg.) and somewhat nose-down, a negative 1g push throws the pilot "up" into his shoulder straps and lap belt to get the aircraft's nose headed skyward. Immediately, a 180-deg./sec. roll is commanded, bringing the aircraft to wings-level, right-side-up." Only then can the system command a climb: "Somewhere after passing the 90-deg.-bank point, a 5g pull-up is initiated at an approximately 4g/sec. rate. The system commands a maximum angle-of-attack recovery, if flight conditions will not sustain a 5g pull-up."

jki275 6y ago

The F18 literally has a switch labeled "Spin Recover". One of the things it does is to take the computer out of the equation and allow the pilot to fully command the airplane rather than processing stick and rudder inputs.[1] General procedure though is take your hands and feet off the controls to start with. The full procedure is in the link a few pages in. Notably, it ends with "if passing 10,000ft AGL with no indication of recovery, eject. 1 - https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a256522.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a256522.pdf